Not sure where you got your drive from but I'll give you my experience with another Seagate AV drive. I bought one version that was retail bulk that worked flawlessly. The other one I bought off of an online auction that advertise as new. To make a long story short, the drive was new but was designed for a particular satellite box. The drive would spin up only on my newest computer attached as a SATA drive from boot. It would not spin up if used as an ESATA drive plugged in after boot. It would not work on my older computer at all and would not spin up on the TiVo at all. After multiple calls with Seagate support, the drive had a modified firmware that was designed for the satellite box it was destined for. They would not give me the retail firmware for the drive. Consequently I returned it. Don't know if this applies to you but I thought I would share the experience.

That seems like it was a good enough hint. While looking through the hdparm man page I noticed the -s "Power up in standby". Disabling that gets the drive to spin in my TiVo. The TiVo is not quite happy yet, so I guess Ill go back to fiddling with the HPA.

Well, I spent the last few DAYS copying off the shows that I wanted onto another TiVo HD. After that I put the original drive in the PC and made a truncated image .tbk. I then connected the new WD 2 TB drive WD20EURS and restored the truncated image with a swap size of 1024MB. It completed and I did not expand the drive at this time. I then installed that drive and powered it up to make sure everything was working. Good thing I did! It brought up the Powering Up... screen and then after a time it brought up the Almost there... screen. Looking good so far. I've done this on a number of other S2 and S3 models so I was feeling pretty confident that all was well. Then it re-booted back to the Powering Up... screen again. I said to myself "WTF?" Then I got the Green screen which basically states that "the DVR has detected a serious problem and is now attempting to fix it. This will take about 3 hours."

Crap. I thought that maybe the truncated image wasn't correct so I pulled the plug, connected the original 1 TB drive to the PC, made another image and again restored it to the 2 TB drive. Same result. This is new territory for me so I'm looking for some help. Should I put the original 1 TB drive back in the TiVo and do a Clear & Delete and then make a new truncated image? Can I just delete the recordings or is a C&D necessary? What does the C&D do to my settings or Cable Card info? I did notice that the original 1 TB drive has 15 partitions but the restored 2 TB (before expanding) has only 14 partitions. Is this normal?

What course of action should I take at this point using WinMFS?

Quote:

Originally Posted by unitron

It should have finished in that length of time, so something must be amiss.

I just cut the size in 1/2. I can try your number but I don't see how the HPA size would effect if the drive spins up or not.

And what does "and you left something out of that command line as well" mean? Why be so cryptic?

I'll be glad to discuss

hdparm

options that are dangerous in beginner's hands in PMs, but I'm a little hesitant to do it out in the open.

I've never used an external on a TiVo myself, but I've seen discussion either here or the mfslive.org site or both by people who know more about all of this than do I that says using an external limits you to using internals the same size as the one from the factory.

The HPA trick is to make it look like it's the same size.

Your original internal should have the LBA number on the label, which is the number you want to use, because that's the amount of space a restored image should fill, and that LBA number is the one you use with

Well, I spent the last few DAYS copying off the shows that I wanted onto another TiVo HD. After that I put the original drive in the PC and made a truncated image .tbk. I then connected the new WD 2 TB drive WD20EURS and restored the truncated image with a swap size of 1024MB. It completed and I did not expand the drive at this time. I then installed that drive and powered it up to make sure everything was working. Good thing I did! It brought up the Powering Up... screen and then after a time it brought up the Almost there... screen. Looking good so far. I've done this on a number of other S2 and S3 models so I was feeling pretty confident that all was well. Then it re-booted back to the Powering Up... screen again. I said to myself "WTF?" Then I got the Green screen which basically states that "the DVR has detected a serious problem and is now attempting to fix it. This will take about 3 hours."

Crap. I thought that maybe the truncated image wasn't correct so I pulled the plug, connected the original 1 TB drive to the PC, made another image and again restored it to the 2 TB drive. Same result. This is new territory for me so I'm looking for some help. Should I put the original 1 TB drive back in the TiVo and do a Clear & Delete and then make a new truncated image? Can I just delete the recordings or is a C&D necessary? What does the C&D do to my settings or Cable Card info? I did notice that the original 1 TB drive has 15 partitions but the restored 2 TB (before expanding) has only 14 partitions. Is this normal?

What course of action should I take at this point using WinMFS?

The restoration should produce the original 13 partitions and they should be the same size as on the original, installed at the factory, internal drive.

(except for the swap partition)

However, even with a 1GB swap, you aren't going to fill 2TBs, so there's going to be a 14th partition, which will be an Apple Free Partition, which is what the Apple Partition Map scheme labels free space that's not partitioned.

When you go back to a larger than original drive with either MFS Live or WinMFS to expand, it takes that Apple Free Partition and turns it into an MFS pair, a small one that's an MFS Application region, and a big one that's an MFS Media region.

WinMFS should run that 15th partition all the way out to the end of the drive--sometimes the MFS Live cd leaves a little bit of space that becomes a 16th partition of the Apple Free variety.

Clear and delete everything will do just that--everything you've added since it left the factory will be wiped out and when it finishes and reboots it'll be at the start of Guided Setup and you have to go through all of that again.

Run wdidle3.exe on that WD20EURS, just to be absolutely sure that Intellipark is disabled, then put it back and let it green screen overnight.

By the time you can report the results of that, I'll have had some sleep.

Well, I spent the last few DAYS copying off the shows that I wanted onto another TiVo HD. After that I put the original drive in the PC and made a truncated image .tbk. I then connected the new WD 2 TB drive WD20EURS and restored the truncated image with a swap size of 1024MB. It completed and I did not expand the drive at this time. I then installed that drive and powered it up to make sure everything was working. Good thing I did! It brought up the Powering Up... screen and then after a time it brought up the Almost there... screen. Looking good so far. I've done this on a number of other S2 and S3 models so I was feeling pretty confident that all was well. Then it re-booted back to the Powering Up... screen again. I said to myself "WTF?" Then I got the Green screen which basically states that "the DVR has detected a serious problem and is now attempting to fix it. This will take about 3 hours."

Crap. I thought that maybe the truncated image wasn't correct so I pulled the plug, connected the original 1 TB drive to the PC, made another image and again restored it to the 2 TB drive. Same result. This is new territory for me so I'm looking for some help. Should I put the original 1 TB drive back in the TiVo and do a Clear & Delete and then make a new truncated image? Can I just delete the recordings or is a C&D necessary? What does the C&D do to my settings or Cable Card info? I did notice that the original 1 TB drive has 15 partitions but the restored 2 TB (before expanding) has only 14 partitions. Is this normal?

What course of action should I take at this point using WinMFS?

IIRC, there are problems trying to do what you are trying to do, i.e. using WinMFS to expand a previously expanded drive. You may be able to do it with JMFS using the instructions here, but I don't know for sure. Hopefully, someone with more knowledge about it will "speak" up. It would also require having both drives hooked up to the computer at the same time.

P.S. I noticed unitron "spoke" up before I posted this, but I am going ahead anyway, just in case JMFS is a possibility.

The restoration should produce the original 13 partitions and they should be the same size as on the original, installed at the factory, internal drive.

(except for the swap partition)

However, even with a 1GB swap, you aren't going to fill 2TBs, so there's going to be a 14th partition, which will be an Apple Free Partition, which is what the Apple Partition Map scheme labels free space that's not partitioned.

When you go back to a larger than original drive with either MFS Live or WinMFS to expand, it takes that Apple Free Partition and turns it into an MFS pair, a small one that's an MFS Application region, and a big one that's an MFS Media region.

WinMFS should run that 15th partition all the way out to the end of the drive--sometimes the MFS Live cd leaves a little bit of space that becomes a 16th partition of the Apple Free variety.

Clear and delete everything will do just that--everything you've added since it left the factory will be wiped out and when it finishes and reboots it'll be at the start of Guided Setup and you have to go through all of that again.

Run wdidle3.exe on that WD20EURS, just to be absolutely sure that Intellipark is disabled, then put it back and let it green screen overnight.

By the time you can report the results of that, I'll have had some sleep.

Unitron,
Thanks for your reply. I have great news; sometime between hours 2 and 2.5 (don't ask how I know ) it rebooted and came up normally. All the settings were intact but there were no listings of the programs as usually happens when you have some recordings and you just restore from the backup image. I'm thinking it went through some kind of a C&D during the green screen. I didn't get around to running wdidle.exe as I was so excited to have a working
drive. I connected one more time and did the mfsadd and then the supersize. It says it failed the supersize but when I checked the system info its reporting 318 HD hours ! wdidle.exe must have been enabled in this WD20EURS from the factory as I'm able to restart it with no issues.

Project done. Thanks for the posts with suggestions. This Forum is the greatest!

Unitron,
Thanks for your reply. I have great news; sometime between hours 2 and 2.5 (don't ask how I know ) it rebooted and came up normally. All the settings were intact but there were no listings of the programs as usually happens when you have some recordings and you just restore from the backup image. I'm thinking it went through some kind of a C&D during the green screen. I didn't get around to running wdidle.exe as I was so excited to have a working
drive. I connected one more time and did the mfsadd and then the supersize. It says it failed the supersize but when I checked the system info its reporting 318 HD hours ! wdidle.exe must have been enabled in this WD20EURS from the factory as I'm able to restart it with no issues.

Project done. Thanks for the posts with suggestions. This Forum is the greatest!

Just to be picky, the "feature" is Intellipark, and wdidle3.exe is the utility with which one enables it/sets the timer period or disables it (which, if you have a particular WD green drive that won't let you disable Intellipark, can be done as far as a TiVo is concerned by setting the timer period to 300 seconds, which is 5 minutes).

It's called the "Green Screen of Death" because of the old Microsoft DOS/Windows Blue Screen of Death, known as BSOD, but TiVo's green screen is actually a good thing because it's really the "green screen of 'give me some time to work through some issues I'm having' ", and for it to still be in good enough shape to be able to invoke the green screen in the first place is a good sign, and you should just let it alone for a while to work things out for itself.

A solid, uniform gray screen with no letters or anything is a different matter, and indicates some kind of imperfect communication between the motherboard and the hard drive (multiple possible causes from loose cable to expensive to fix things), and requires a more active intervention.

options that are dangerous in beginner's hands in PMs, but I'm a little hesitant to do it out in the open.

I've never used an external on a TiVo myself, but I've seen discussion either here or the mfslive.org site or both by people who know more about all of this than do I that says using an external limits you to using internals the same size as the one from the factory.

The HPA trick is to make it look like it's the same size.

Your original internal should have the LBA number on the label, which is the number you want to use, because that's the amount of space a restored image should fill, and that LBA number is the one you use with

hdparm

(it's whatever's left over that determines the size of the HPA)

I would not think this forum is the novice, if you open the box you better know what you are doing.

In any case, my problem was the drive being configured to power up in idle. With a fresh copy of the old image and a matching LBA all is well (I don't know which or both of those two was necessary.)

As far as using an internal drive larger than the original with an external drive, I almost did an experiment with that, but decided my day job took priority. http://www.mfslive.org/forums/viewto...1&p=6970#p6970
I was tempted to try it now with the 500GB, but I spent too long trying to get it to spin.

Hey guys...I've been gone quite a while, and haven't kept up on this stuff. I read the FAQ on the first page of this thread, and tried to quickly scan a few other pages, but this thread is so large now, it's hard to find the right info...

I'm trying to expand my TIVoHD with a 2TB drive. Is the 'Broflovski image' still the way to do this, or is there now another way? If so, where can I get the image, and what other tools do I need to apply it? If not, what's the current preferred way to do this? I do have a dual-drive dock, and I could possibly duplicate it, but I know that the Tivo HD can only see 1.26TB unless another 'trick' is used. I could either copy the contents of my current drive, or just use an image...either way works for me...

Hey guys...I've been gone quite a while, and haven't kept up on this stuff. I read the FAQ on the first page of this thread, and tried to quickly scan a few other pages, but this thread is so large now, it's hard to find the right info...

I'm trying to expand my TIVoHD with a 2TB drive. Is the 'Broflovski image' still the way to do this, or is there now another way? If so, where can I get the image, and what other tools do I need to apply it? If not, what's the current preferred way to do this? I do have a dual-drive dock, and I could possibly duplicate it, but I know that the Tivo HD can only see 1.26TB unless another 'trick' is used. I could either copy the contents of my current drive, or just use an image...either way works for me...

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks!

Assuming the drive in there currently is smaller than 2TB, check sys info and make sure it's running 11.0k or 11.0m of the TiVo software, then install WinMFS on a PC running XP SP3 or newer.

11.0g or k made it possible for any of the 3 S3 models to successfully boot from and use all of a 2TB drive.

For the 2TB drive, lots of people, including me, have had success with the WD20EURS, which happens to be on sale at the moment.

go to the bottom of the page where it says mirror sites and click on one of the icons (arrow pointing down at old Windows drive icon) on the left.

When you've downloaded it, burn it "as an image" (to make it bootable) to a cd-r.

Almost everybody's diagnostic software is on there (along with all sorts of other stuff that might come in handy some day).

Once you have a tested 2TB drive, hook it and the current TiVo drive up to the PC, boot into Windows, use WinMFS to make a backup image of the current drive if you haven't already.

Click File, then Select Drive, and make sure you pick the current TiVo drive.

Then click View and mfsinfo, just to make sure it doesn't complain about anything being wrong with the drive (I'm assuming, and hoping, you do not have an external drive attached to that TiVo, because that would be a tremendous complication).

Then click Save, and think up a file name and tell it where on your Windows drive to save the info as a text file. It'll save the contenst of all 3 tabs, Zone Map, Partion Map, and Misc. in that one file.

Then close that and click File, Backup, TiVo Drive (truncated), and tell it where on your PC's own hard drive you want to save the image--it'll be in the 200 to 600MB range.

Then use WinMFS to do an mfscopy.

The source drive, the current TiVo drive should still be selected.

Click Tools, mfscopy, then make sure it shows the right drive as the source drive and select the 2TB drive as the Destination Drive.

There will be 2 Options available for you to check or not.

The second one, No Optimized Partition Layout, you want to leave not, repeat NOT, checked, because you DO want to have the optimized layout on any TiVo newer than a Series 1.

The first option lets you specify a different swap partition size from the default, which is the 128MB of the one on the source drive.

You don't want to make it any smaller.

A lot of people leave this unchanged and seem to get along okay.

Others of us make it bigger "just in case".

The old rule of thumb, from when exceeding 127GB on an expanded Series 1 drive was bleeding edge, was 1MB of swap for every 2GB of total drive size.

That would work out to a swap size for a 2TB of 1000MB, which is about 15 minutes of analog standard definition video recorded at Best Quality.

I figure it's cheap insurance, but that's just me.

So decide for yourself, then click start and wait.

It'll copy over the TiVo software and all of your settings and recorded shows.

It may appear to have frozen.

Just let it keep going.

When it finishes, it'll tell you that you have extra space on the new drive and ask if you want to expand.

Tell it no.

Go to File, Select Drive, and this time select the 2TB drive, then click on mfsinfo and see if everything looks okay.

The Partition Map tab should show the same partitions as before, possibly with a larger swap partition if you went that route, and at the end a big ol' Apple Free partition.

If everything looks cool, click on Tools and then on mfsadd. That'll turn that Apple Free partition (which is what the Apple Partition Map turns unpartitioned space into--that's Apple thinking for you, unpartitioned space is a partition, just like the map itself is a partition) into a 3rd MFS pair, filling the rest of the drive.

That's it. Back out of WinMFS, shut down Windows, put the drive in the TiVo, and plug it in.

Actually you should have left the original drive on the drive bracket this entire time, and plug the combo data/power cable into the 2TB now that it's ready to test in the TiVo and hang it upside down over the back of the chassis (it'll make sense when you do it) and plug in the TiVo and make sure the new drive works okay.

If everything's cool, shut down the TiVo, take the old drive off the bracket and put it somewhere safe for possible future reference as a troubleshooting aid, put the new drive on the bracket, put the bracket back in the TiVo, make sure there aren't any unconnected cables, put the cover back on the TiVo, and enjoy.

How do you run wdidle if you don't own a PC? I have an iMac and a Macbook Pro.

wdidle3.exe

is on the Ultimate Boot cd, from which you would boot.

You just have to have the WD drive connected to a SATA port on the motherboard and not through a second layer like a USB adapater.

And if there are any other WD drives connected to that computer, disconnect them before booting, as wdidle3 doesn't offer an opportunity to tell it which WD drive you want to change, and will probably try to do all of them or maybe not to the one you want done.

You just have to have the WD drive connected to a SATA port on the motherboard and not through a second layer like a USB adapater.

And if there are any other WD drives connected to that computer, disconnect them before booting, as wdidle3 doesn't offer an opportunity to tell it which WD drive you want to change, and will probably try to do all of them or maybe not to the one you want done.

I have a WD drive inside the computer. The iMac has the harddrive installed inside the monitor, and its very tricky/difficult to open.

Moroeover, I don't have any Windows simulation software or Bootcamp installed so I can't run any .exe files.

The drive I ordered is the WD30EFRX, which has Intellipower (not Intellipark) from what I can gather through a Google search. That means I shouldn't have to worry about running wdidle, right? I'm not about to purchase a PC just to do run some program.

"If everything's cool, shut down the TiVo, take the old drive off the bracket and put it somewhere safe for possible future reference as a troubleshooting aid, put the new drive on the bracket, put the bracket back in the TiVo, make sure there aren't any unconnected cables, put the cover back on the TiVo, and enjoy."

Unitron...Thanks so much for taking the time to give such a detailed response...much appreciated!

I'll be attempting to do this this weekend (I THINK!), and I'll let you know how it goes...

I did pick up a couple of the WD20EURS drives from the Newegg sale...I've wanted to do this for a while, and the sale was what gave me the 'kick' I needed...

One last question...is the procedure the same for putting a 2TB drive in the TIVoHD XL, or does something change?

Thanks again!
_________
Oh, BTW...I do NOT (never have and never will) have an external drive hooked up ...

"If everything's cool, shut down the TiVo, take the old drive off the bracket and put it somewhere safe for possible future reference as a troubleshooting aid, put the new drive on the bracket, put the bracket back in the TiVo, make sure there aren't any unconnected cables, put the cover back on the TiVo, and enjoy."

Unitron...Thanks so much for taking the time to give such a detailed response...much appreciated!

I'll be attempting to do this this weekend (I THINK!), and I'll let you know how it goes...

I did pick up a couple of the WD20EURS drives from the Newegg sale...I've wanted to do this for a while, and the sale was what gave me the 'kick' I needed...

One last question...is the procedure the same for putting a 2TB drive in the TIVoHD XL, or does something change?

Thanks again!
_________
Oh, BTW...I do NOT (never have and never will) have an external drive hooked up ...

It's exactly the same steps for an original S3 (TCD648250), an HD (TCD652160), and an HD XL (TCD658000).

Make sure you've already been updated to at least 11.0k, which it should have been a year or 2 ago.

I have six SATA drives connected to my Mac Pro. If I had the source code to wdidle, I might be able to run it on my Mac. Or on my Linux box.

If you "knew" that, why did you say it is "Windows only". It has nothing to do with Windows. It's your hardware that is the relevant factor, not the OS. If you can boot and run the CD, you're good. You may have meant that it is limited to "PC" but even that is not true.

It's exactly the same steps for an original S3 (TCD648250), an HD (TCD652160), and an HD XL (TCD658000).

Make sure you've already been updated to at least 11.0k, which it should have been a year or 2 ago.

(and should have updated to 11.0m in the last 2 or 3 months)

and you can go up to a 2TB drive on any of those 3 models.

I had a change of plans, so I attempted to upgrade the Tivo HD today. I put both the TIVO drive and the new 2TB drive in a USB 3.0 dual-bay drive dock. I got through and started running Mfscopy. All appeared fine until I got about halfway through and it froze. I know that the instructions say that: "it may appear to have frozen. Just let it keep going."

It's been 'frozen' now for about 2 hours, with absolutely NO activity on either drive. Is this 'normal'? Is so, can someone give me an idea approx. how long it will take before it starts 'going' again?

I had a change of plans, so I attempted to upgrade the Tivo HD today. I put both the TIVO drive and the new 2TB drive in a USB 3.0 dual-bay drive dock. I got through and started running Mfscopy. All appeared fine until I got about halfway through and it froze. I know that the instructions say that: "it may appear to have frozen. Just let it keep going."

It's been 'frozen' now for about 2 hours, with absolutely NO activity on either drive. Is this 'normal'? Is so, can someone give me an idea approx. how long it will take before it starts 'going' again?

Rick

Do CTRL+ALT+DLT to bring up task manager and see if it says it's running or something else.

If it says it's running, give it a couple more hours.

Generally WinMFS either runs or out and out crashes and says so, or Windows pops up something to say it crashed.